


Please, Come Back

by Izzy_Grinch



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adamant Fortress, Angst, Best Friends, Blue-Purple Hawke, Caring Varric, Epic Bromance, Epic Friendship, Established Relationship, Everybody Lives, Forehead Touching, Gen, Gentle Kissing, Hawke stays in the Fade, Hugs, Insomnia, M/M, Post-Here Lies the Abyss, Purple Hawke, Romance, Sleep Deprivation, Sleepy Cuddles, and safely comes back to Varric, worried Varric, you will probably cry a lot tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 11:57:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12704535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izzy_Grinch/pseuds/Izzy_Grinch
Summary: Garrett Hawke is an essential part of his life. He doesn't want, he won't, he refuses to imagine what his existence can turn into if this part is removed. But somewhere deep inside he knows that one day it may happen.





	Please, Come Back

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Вернись](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12092217) by [Izzy_Grinch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izzy_Grinch/pseuds/Izzy_Grinch). 



_I wrote these words down_

_To tell you all the things_

_I should’ve said so long ago._

Alter Bridge − You Will Be Remembered

Varric has trouble sleeping. He goes to bed way past midnight, letting the candles burn away until their dry paraffin reek makes his head throb; he tries to keep his mind busy, staining pages and his fingers with inks, and the lines crawl down the sheet, as if intending to escape it, but Varric knows he can write much more, and so he dips the quill into the bottle, where the night is swirling, obedient to his will.

He falls asleep, severely exhausted, tossing and turning for so long it feels like eternity, and wakes up even to the tiniest sound to suddenly dive into the dull blackness, like tripping over a high threshold, and emerge from it while the city is still dark and lying in a sweet slumber. He breaks out in a cold sweat if there’re shouts behind his door. He awaits for someone to call for him, to call for every living soul of Kirkwall − but first and foremost to call _for him_ because something bad has happened to Hawke.

However, Hawke always makes it out alive. Garrett Hawke can’t be crashed by swords, poisoned arrows, deaths of his relatives; Varric knows it, Varric has seen it. And every time Varric forgets it, watching Hawke stumbling into the room, slipping down the wall carefully and asking to not mind the dagger stuck in his shoulder until Anders shows up. He is the liveliest of them all, he is more alive than the life itself, overflowing him; he jokes that he’s traded the dragon’s longevity from Flemeth for just a kiss, and then he bends over a bucket to let the blood pour from his mouth and not spatter the carpet. He smiles with his lips carmine-red, puts them to Varric’s temple and says he’s gonna be alright.

When they are showered by the restless sea waters on the salted shores; when they are reviled by the indolent punks on the dirty backstreets; or surrounded by dampness and mustiness somewhere under the city; or beaten by the rocks of the demolished golems on the Deep Roads − then Varric’s heart is not that heavy. He sees Hawke, and he notices the danger, crawling upon them, and he knows exactly how to protect the first and avoid the second. He _can actually do_ something. When Hawke leaves without him, Varric is devastated by his own helplessness.

It’s four in the morning or, maybe, five; he sits up in his bed, hearing the stomp of the iron-shod boots. It comes closer, and closer, and then it passes by and moves away along the corridor. He knows, of course, the kind of steps he’s expecting so eagerly, for he knows these steps by heart, like a melody from the childhood, or the raindrops whispering on the roof, or something else, even more natural and familiar. He knows, but heeds unwillingly for every other sound. It can by anything, from patrolling with guards and doing the night raids to fighting with Tal-Vashots and searching for the insane slaver; it can be anything when Hawke drops by in the evening to snatch a dinner, all fidgety and too loud about his plans; when he swallows his breakfast on the run and with a crumbling flatbread in his hand waves off any help from Varric, saying that Fenris is just enough for the mission.

They gather a party and go dragon hunting to the Bone Pit, and after things are settled, the three of them have to drag Garrett’s smoking body to the clinic. The scorches are severe, but even so they skin over with time, and Hawke’s covered with them as if with some kind of a scale; as if he has soaked a part of the defeated beast and become even stronger and braver. He laughs, saying his skin still senses the roughness and warmth of Varric’s fingers. He laughs, but Varric goes to bed with his heart in his mouth.

Varric sleeps in fits and starts, he has too many things to do to let himself relax. He has an endless list of things to do − and he has only one Hawke; and sometimes, when the fatigue leans smoothly on him, like an immense and heavy pillow, which is too big to crawl away from, and too weighty to fling it aside and get up, he’s grateful for not dreaming. It’s said, the dreams are made of the most intimate, the most worrying and gnawing thoughts. It’s said, the dreams often turn into the nightmares. Varric is grateful for the silence, which accompanies his sleep; he’s already on that edge where he’s too afraid to close his eyes − and miss something immeasurably important, and too afraid to open them − and find out there is no more important left.

He’s waiting in the darkness. It’s been three minutes or three hours, he can’t tell. He’s waiting for his eyelids to shut, thinking he could actually jot down some more letters. He’s just about to search for a candle stub and a fire steel, when he hears floorboards creaking behind the door, rambling as if being trampled by many feet. The hinges swish softly, the lock clicks, and the dog’s claws start to joyfully clatter on the floor. Garrett hushes in a low voice, when the clumsy and furry body jumps on the blanket and settles, crumping it down. There’re so many noises. There’re always so many noises from Garrett Hawke, and din, and twaddle; he swears and jokes in a fight, gets witty at the Gallows meetings, scoffs at the sight of Kirkwall’s Seneschal. Even when nothing comes from his mouth, something is always falling around, or rustling, or rolling, and every moment is literally screaming about his presence.

He puts the gauntlets off, they clang like a falcon’s pounces; he detaches the massive pauldron, removes the metal chest plate; and though Varric appreciates deeply Hawke’s attempts to be as quiet as possible, he drinks all the sounds in, like he’s sorting them out for an exotic collection, which will never be shown to anyone. Garrett whispers, arguing with the dog about the space on the bed, then he slips into the warmth with his legs, cold as hell, snuggles to Varric’s back, hot after the thick clothes and armors. Varric covers the hand, curling around his chest, with his own palm, and when Hawke begins to apologize for waking him up, Varric only says: “It’s alright. I fall asleep pretty fast.” _It’s alright._

  ** _***_**

_You left me out in the distance_

_To wander this world on my own._

Alter Bridge − Fortress

 

Varric sleeps like the dead. He wakes up, feeling exhausted and crashed, as if he’s been chopped into unequal pieces, now casted away from each other for many untrodden miles. He sits still for what seems like hours, dangling his legs over the edge of the bed, and stares at the wall, seeing nothing. He has to stagger to the War Room, to meet some folks, talk about today’s, tomorrow’s and future plans, and somehow haul his body through another day to finally lock himself here again, in the squalid room of the Herald’s Rest, and tumble like a corpse on the lumpy mattress, and disappear in a gulf of the gracious unconsciousness, and then after all he must get up again and never wonder that sun still rises in the East and life keeps rushing like an affluent river, which has been running there a dozen, a thousand − a million years ago, before all of them, and which will still run after they all are gone.

He understood it. When the damned Rift spitted out one person less, he understood everything. This is Hawke, after all. Hawke does things the way only Hawke would do. He is wholehearted; he gives himself up to the others so thoroughly; his love, and kindness, and desire to help everyone are devoted and generous. It’s better this way, Varric told himself. Better than watching the half of the Adamant fortress collapsing under Garrett Hawke’s feet and drawing him into the green abyss − or, maybe, through it, right onto the ground; to see it without knowing for sure how it’s ended for him. Has the enchanted Anchor in the Inquisitor’s fist saved them? Or have they pierced the emerald mist and wrecked on the rocks somewhere down there, deformed and twisted heaps of flesh and broken bones? It’s better when you know. Without any doubt, without any hope, _without Hawke_ − but at least _you know_.

He was repeating this thought to himself, gnawing on it until nothing left but the naked skeleton and the naked truth. It’s _not_ better. Andraste knows, it’s not. It is not better in any way, because it just cannot be.

He curses himself. For not being agile enough. For lagging behind with his bulky crossbow and his tiny steps, straying in the corridors of Adamant, losing count of enemies. For not being close. For not being where he had to. Was obliged to, by any means. They would think something up. They always managed to, somehow, and get out when the noose was already around the neck. Even if they wouldn’t that time, his only duty was to stay with Hawke − somewhere, anywhere, in any place and time. He knows Hawke wouldn’t let him, as he knows that he wouldn’t listen to.

And he also knows that dew still appears on grass every morning, and clouds obey to the flowing of winds, and a fistful of stinging snow melts when you clench your fingers. With Hawke or without him. With or _without_. But he understands it all, and he buries his face into his palms, and when Solas worriedly opens the library door from inside, Varric doesn’t step away from his consoling and frigid embraces for the only reason − he’s just unable to do this.

Varric sleeps like the one who’s fated to never wake up again. Like the one who needs to be covered with a linen sheet and carried down to the basement, where in chill of draughts the fallen rest. Like the one who’s been burning brightly and went out suddenly. He hates himself. This feeling dwells deep within, like a splinter, but he knows that powerlessness, despair, emptiness − they all are just the shades of his rage. The Inquisitor averts his gaze from Varric; the Inquisitor thinks Varric hates _him_. He thinks he’s the one to blame, and Varric doesn’t try to reassure him he’s not.

Varric sees nothing when he sleeps. He doesn’t have a glowing mark. He can’t whisper to the Fade and open the Veil like it’s some kind of dusty curtains. He asks Solas if he can− can find Hawke. Out there. On the other side. Alive, stone-cold, transformed − it doesn’t matter. Solas looks at him with an odd expression, the one people of Skyhold use to look at their commander, suffering without lirium intoxications. “False hope,” Solas answers, “bites off from a mind, piece by piece, like a vulture, until there is nothing left for it to dip its hooked beak into.” But he searches. And he doesn’t find.

Varric pores over his books. The words seems to be the rusted springs; his fingers − the clumsy stumps; his wit − the faded drawing in a frame with its gilding falling off. Hawke is dead, he tells himself. But he just can’t put it on paper. Fenris, he writes, my friend− Anders, he begs, don’t do anything reckless after you read this− Avelin, he scratches on a sheet, and chokes on a spasm, clenching his lungs, and throat, and eyeballs. Daisy, he begins, stops, creases the letters and angrily throws them into the fire. The flames devour hungrily the untold truths; they’re all the same to the flames.

The waiting is pointless. There’s no sense in waiting here, at the tables with festive clothes on, and dishes, and goblets, and informal conversations. He doesn’t have to be a part of this feast, to watch the colors flushing on the gaunt faces again, the candle lights dancing in the cleared eyes, the strained silence giving way to the gentle, flickering laughter; he doesn’t have to wait to pack up and leave. Varric wants to return to Kirkwall. That Kirkwall which was clinging like a dying dog to the hands of its Champion. That Kirkwall the streets of which begun to breathe with winds instead of the odor of the rotten orders. That Kirkwall which was slaughtered, tortured, eviscerated, and still raised from its own blood and ashes, mended and freed again. He has nothing to do in the old elven castle anymore. However, he stays to tell the pages how the victory was celebrated in the Frostback Mountains. He waits, letting the chatter pass through him like the flows of the headiest wine, bestowing the oblivion.

“Master Tethras”, a scout calls him and shakes his shoulder slightly, as if he’s a drowsing old man. “Master Tethras”, the scout with a weather-beaten face says, and Varric notices another one at the Inquisitor’s throne. “A rider at the gates, sir, we let him in, he asked for your presence.” Varric stands up, and the main hall, shining with gold of salvers, and ancient wall mosaics, and shimmering apparels, becomes dark and blurry in his eyes. He runs, stumbling, his legs growing numb. He pushes away the half-doors of the entrance and squints short-sightedly into the evening dusk, looking down, at the lower yard, where a figure slides from a saddle, slowly and stiffly. These movements can be labored, or constrained with pain, or edgy, or unusually careful; these movements can be of any kind, and still he recognizes them. Varric hails the rider and rushes down the stairs, without waiting for the man to toss his head up.

The heart is pounding in his ears so heavily, the echo of the ice breaking and the puddles splashing under his boots is so reverberating that he’s frightened to not hear the man’s voice. But more than anything he’s horrified of finding no one there: not a shadow, not a sithe, not a single sound. Nothing. _Garrett Hawke is dead_ , they were saying in every corner, on the streets of leisured Val-Royeaux, in the rat holes of the freemen, on the market place of Redcliffe.

Garrett Hawke is alive. He pulls down his hood; he’s bareboned and injured, his beard is overgrown and messy like never before, and his hair− his hair is touched with white. There’re smoky strands on his coal-black temples, the silver glints in his pointy beard. Varric can’t believe his eyes. Hawke’s left arm is in a dirty sling, he walks with a limp, his clothes are stained with something dark and clotted, and his body under the fabric− it hurts Varric to imagine how many of the unhealed, deep wounds are hidden underneath the clothes, on this suffered body.

They collide like a couple of oncoming squalls during the mightiest, the deadliest of storms; Hawke groans under his breath, clutching to Varric, and kneels, and so Varric hold him as tightly as his hands, work-weary of the crossbow, let him to; as he’d hold this stubborn man to wrench him from the grips of Fade. Hawke’s cheeks are cold and wet, and Varric covers them with kisses, covers the entire face, too scared to miss even an inch of Garrett’s skin, too scared to disturb even a scratch, a dark bruise or a swollen scar. Garrett whispers constantly “I’m so terribly sorry” in a cracked and bitter voice, puts his fingers in Varric’s hair, presses his forehead against Varric’s one; their eyes meet, and Hawke’s lips start to shiver. With a palm Varric gently pulls the man’s head to let it rest on his shoulder and says as if learning to speak anew: “It’s alright, Garrett. You’re home.” It’s alright.


End file.
